gird your loins, my friends...

for this is going to be a really long post. Mostly because it's going to be about my really long Monday. What's really long, you ask? Let me tell you. Really long is 6.5 hours of class and 2.5 hours of transporting myself to and from class. Really long is leaving my house at 8:30am and not getting back until 6:30pm. (I know the math doesn't add up; I have a couple minutes here and there in which I catch my breath/buy coffee.)

So. The day starts off with grammar, which could potentially be horrible because, well, it's grammer. However, two of my best friends, Laura and Maria, are in my grammar class, and our professor is fantastic. So that's cool.

I then trot off to my medieval CM (reminder: CMs are lectures, TDs seminars... ish), which is totally confusing. Like I said before, it's the second half of a year-long course, and the professor teaches as if we were all there last semester. (I guess that's his perogative, but it doesn't make things any easier for me.) Plus, he has a penchant for speaking while writing on the board and facing away from us. Awesome. It only lasts an hour, though, and since we don't get homework or grades for the CMs I don't think it really matters.

I then hop the subway to go to one of the Sorbonne's other campuses for the medieval TD. Last week it took me 30 minutes to find the place; I thought I was da coo'est and so tried to get there on my own, without a map and without asking for directions. The experience so humbled me that I asked for directions right after getting out of the subway. The TD was fascinating. First of all, I'm the only American in the class (I think, although there's a British girl who's been here all year). Second, I got to see my first exposé. I almost cried in fear. You're supposed to speak for 20-25 minutes. The girl who was presenting spoke for about 17, and the stuff she had prepared she knew cold Apparently, though, she hadn't prepared enough; the professor grilled her for 20 more minutes after she finished. The rest of the class we spent analyzing another text. It was very cool. Afterwards, since I had missed the first session, I spoke to the professor. He seemed very impressed that I was taking the class, and told me that if I ever had any questions I should email him or talk to him after class. He assigned me an exposé - he said it would be a good opportunity to practice my French. Woohoo. I love practicing my French.

My last class of the day is the TD for thhe Belle Epoque course. The professor is kind of scary. Not academically scary, just scary. (Nana, you'd love her... she yelled at a kid for saying "ouais," which is the French equivalent of "yeah.") We spent the first hour talking about Hector Guimard, and the last hour looking at slides of Art Nouveau works. (http://lartnouveau.com/) I fell in love with this lamp: http://lartnouveau.com/oeuvres/lampes/l3.htm (hint, hint)

Since I had had an eventful weekend, 11 Victor Cousin had a roomie night in. We got an amazing rotisserie chicken from a boucherie around the corner, made sweet potatoes and a colorful salad, and watched the newest Grey's. It was exactly what I needed.

So there's an upside and a downside to these crazy Mondays. Upside: I get all the hard stuff done and over with. Downside: I am totally unmotivated for the rest of the week. Excellent.